Group banks on data visualization giving care coordination a boost

CHICAGO -- Population health efforts need easy, direct and timely access to disparate information sources, including claims, clinical, quality, financial outcomes and patient experience. Adding to this challenge is the rise of clinically integrated networks/accountable care organizations, which add difficulty to making effective use of data sources and analytics.

But one group is trying to fix that.

The Care Coordination Institute has built a data visualization system for the South Carolina clinically integrated network that enables stakeholders throughout the network to more easily access data in real-time and see and understand data through an intuitive interface.

“Getting to our dashboard did not happen overnight,” said John Supra, vice president of solutions and services at the Care Coordination Institute. “We use data from many disparate sources across the network. We have built within South Carolina a database of about 2.4 million patients, 85 practice groups, 40 million encounters.”

"Computers cannot tell us exactly what to do. But how do we as a data team, the operations team, help support our clinicians in driving better outcomes? Through data visualization, insight, and making data available."

John Supra, Care Coordination Institute

That led the institute to support the ACOs in the network as they move toward taking on risk. Now, the institute works through meaningful risk programs that include cost and quality measures.

“We build tools that look at cost and quality,” Supra said. “How are people performing, from one simple graphic to the drill-in capability, to help network leadership, providers, operations staff within the office, who all share a role in our move to population health and quality improvement while reining in costs.”

Supra addressed the HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Pop Health Forum Monday during a session entitled “The Secret to Direct and Timely Access to Disparate Data.”

For a complete picture, the institute also imports payer data into the database. That’s the only way, Supra said, to get a complete view of performance. But that wasn’t the end of the data work.

“While we started with financial and clinical outcomes, there is a lot more to it,” he said. “There is social determinants, and we also study clinical guidelines and best practices that have been agreed upon by physicians committees. And we also include patient experience data.”

Stakeholders throughout the network can access the database through the interface to answer whatever questions they may have. What changes can this drive? How does the financial data support the total cost of care across the network?

“For example, as we work and advise the networks, we support whenever they go into risk arrangements, we help them get 100 percent of the claim because if they are taking a risk, they need to be engaged in that way,” Supra said.

As organizations take on more risk, stakeholders need to be able see things, he added.

“Computers cannot tell us exactly what to do,” he said. “But how do we as a data team, the operations team, help support our clinicians in driving better outcomes? Through data visualization, insight, and making data available.”